


a heartbeat moving through me

by goreallegore



Series: i wanna make you happy (wanna make you feel alive) [3]
Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: (Mention of blood), Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, F/F, F/M, Vampires
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-07
Updated: 2016-03-07
Packaged: 2018-05-25 05:08:54
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,432
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6181507
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/goreallegore/pseuds/goreallegore
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Niall laughs, her cheeks warming up, “Knew you’d figure it out.” She looks over her shoulder out the window in the door, and sees Harry showing Louis something on his phone, “Just a boy.” <br/>“A boy and a girl,” and it sounds like Zayn understands. </i>
</p>
<p>Or; bath bombs are fun, carnivals are cool, and a vampire is in love.</p>
            </blockquote>





	a heartbeat moving through me

**Author's Note:**

  * For [outwardbound93](https://archiveofourown.org/users/outwardbound93/gifts), [theamazingpeterparker](https://archiveofourown.org/users/theamazingpeterparker/gifts).



> heyyyyyyyyy, i am finally finished with this verse. well, not indefinitely since i could write drabbles. but ANYWAY !!! tbh this is a love-letter to two people who are so dear to me and i hope they enjoy this because i did. i love amy and sav so much that it truly is hard to describe so here's some sappy fic with lots of kisses. yeah? yeah. cooool.

Niall squints, shutting her eyes tight after the sunlight filters in through the thin material of her curtains. She hisses at the way her bare skin statics against the starchy cotton sheets, the cloth just washed, and she stretches her limbs, pawing at the bed frame and flopping on her belly, her breasts pressing against the soft comforter.

 

Niall sighs, breathing in wisps of her hair, chewing absently until she closes her eyes, the same picture taped at the back of her eyelids like a burning memory. Vampires can’t die unless killed, and then that’s it, no 100 year old book alluding to afterlife to help keep the hope alive. Niall used to think it was silly not to believe, not to think of a time when she’d know more than the way around the empty walls built inside her, but now the hopes dwindled down to thoughts she can’t articulate. 

 

She’d get out of bed, she’d shower, she’d go over to Eoghan’s, she’d do all that if she could rid the clawing in her chest and it is so odd because this is entirely new yet achingly familiar, the lethargic feeling loosening her joints. 

 

She lays there, her eyelids shut tight, her breathing even, when the bell to the front door - something that had ceased to ring over the past month - dings, jolting her up, the sheets pooling around her waist which she pushes, balancing on the heels of her feet as she gets out of bed. She pulls on the large shirt lying on her loveseat and tugs it on, letting her hair fall loose to the front, her fangs out and her bottom lip sore from the weight. 

 

She ran out of blood the very night she’d returned from the waterfall, her feet achy and blisters blooming at the surface of her skin, and since then she hadn’t had much energy to go out and get some more from the local butcher - lovely man in his early 40’s with a wife and children. 

 

She is climbing down the staircase, her fingers tapping to a melody she remembers Louis humming, when she first smells it. The saccharine, flurry trickling like a taunting reminder, and she freezes, the doorbell ringing again in her wait. With trembling knees she manages to step down the last step, her taste buds salivating with each tread, her walk to the door painfully slow and yet too fast. 

 

She edges the door open, enough to pop out half of her face, her bangs hanging in her face, and comes to catch sight of curls coiffed up, pulled enough to expose Harry’s forehead. 

 

He tilts his head, and the scent isn’t his, cause he’s a fairy and their wildly proactive immune system is great at hiding it in presence of supernatural beings, but instead it’s the girl clinging onto his arm like a life-line with her unkempt hair and smeared eyeliner and chapped lips. Niall instinctively licks her own, desperately trying to get a look at her eyes, but her head is hanging low. 

 

Harry tries to push forward, but in retaliation Niall just holds onto the door tighter, and finds Harry saying, “Your fangs…”

 

She touches her lips, consciously fearful that Harry might not like them - a fear she hadn’t known she’d even possessed - and curls further into herself, her shoulders slouching, the boy continuing, “How long has it been?”

 

Niall doesn’t bother entertaining him, going to close the door, but he wedges his foot in-between the space and says, firmly this time, “Lou wants to say something.”

 

There is a clutch in her chest that she tries to ignore, there’s spark in her veins that wills her to open the door, enough to stand tall in nothing but the wrinkly shirt, “I reckoned you didn’t want to do anything with me.”

 

Louis mumbles around her words, saying something rude that Harry elbows her, smiling bright, “Lou, what we talk about?”

 

“For fuck’s sake, fine,” she pulls her head, rather aggressively. Niall flinches at her words, “I’d like to know why you thought it was completely okay to kiss Harry when you clearly knew how I felt about you. Oh and I wanted to throw rocks at your window but this wouldn’t let me.”

 

The more she talks the stronger her inherent fragrance gets, the tips of Niall’s fangs aching with a mouthful of iron making her tongue dry, she coils a hand around her left arm, digging her nails into her skin to stop herself. 

 

The sun is up outside, Niall’s porch shadowed thanks to the awning under which she stood and shared her first kiss with Louis, the one that tasted like summer and orange popsicles and nothing alike to the bitter taste in her mouth. 

 

“You never said,” Niall clenches, speaking through teeth. “You never said how you felt.”

 

Louis blinks at her, stunned at most, “I thought. Meaning you don’t?”

 

Carefully, Niall steps back, putting some distance between herself and the pair, the breeze from the outside wafting in and erupting goosebumps along the skin of her legs - she’s always cold. She manages to keep her eyes only on Louis, wants her to know that she is focused on her and only her, but her heart lurches at the tiny glimpses of the way Harry’s chewing down his bottom lip, nervously playing with the rings on his fingers. 

 

“I lik-,” Niall tries but her mouth is watering now, her body is getting warmer and warmer, and she wants Louis to leave. Harry must figure out what’s going on cause he breathes out a lowly, “fuck.”

 

“How long has it been?” he asks again, walking past her towards the kitchen. Niall shivers, “Since the waterfall.”

 

He comes back empty handed, Louis standing still on the porch, “You don’t have any blood? What were you thinking?”

 

Niall doesn’t break eye-contact with Louis, “It’s fine. This isn’t anything new.”

 

But Harry’s already heading out, pulling on Louis’ hand, turning her to face him, “Hey. Listen? Keep an eye on her and don’t let her leave the house. Okay? She can be dangerous.”

 

“Harry, she’s human how would she…” and Louis looks back at her. Her brows knitted, “Not everyone needs to have powers to take care of themselves or others, Niall.”

 

Niall swallows around the burning guilt, and nods, letting Louis in, catching trail of Harry jumping into his car. Louis closes the door and navigates around the foyer to the living room and Niall follows silently in step with her. They sit on opposing couches, a good few feet between them and Louis breaks the silence, “You don’t like me...huh?”

 

Niall affronted, “Why are you so thickheaded? Just because I kissed your mate doesn’t mean my feelings for you evaporated.”

 

Louis jeers, twisting the friendship band Niall had weaved her over the summer - it’s green and blue to match the vibrant colors she exudes, the colors Niall sees in her -, “Yeah, well, normal people don’t kiss other people when they like someone.”

 

Niall sighs, because she’s given this speech so many times and not enough, and when was the last time she even did? She’s been this barren corpse striding along for the longest time so, maybe, she deserves this - for herself more than anything. 

 

“I,” she ducks her head, stabbing her nails into her arm deeper and deeper, “I like you. More than I have someone in a long time, but.”

 

“But?” Louis encourages, her voice now softer. Niall melts at that, her insides absolving into goo, her ears aflame on top of the relentless appetite, “But I like him too. Or would like the chance to.”

 

“So, you’re not picking him over me?” Louis asks, her voice lighter and Niall looks up and sees her smiling. “Not in even in the slightest,” Niall says, and Louis gets it? Easily enough, yeah. And how impossibly stupid of them to have spent the past month apart. 

 

“Is that okay?” she asks, cautious. 

Louis shrugs, “I mean, yeah? I think? Like I’ve never been with someone who likes two people. But I like you a lot and am willing to give it a shot.”   
  


Niall nods, biting down on her lip. Louis continues, “‘Sides, isn’t like you even know him. He sleeps with socks on Niall, do you really want that?”

 

Niall chuckles, first quiet then bursting out loud, and Louis follows after her. She gets up from the couch and walks towards Niall, and kneels down in front of her, kissing the pale skin of her thighs where blue veins run like tiny river, Louis’ chapped lips like rubbly rocks floating by. 

 

“I wanna fall in love with you,” Louis declares ever so easily and Niall’s grinning, her fangs achy, her skin warm from hunger, but her heart settled. 

 

“Me too,” she agrees. And of course knowing Louis she jests, “Ugh, so narcissistic to fall in love with yourself. Nialler.”

 

They stay there until Harry returns, Niall running her fingers through Louis’ hair since her head is in her lap, and she’s telling stories in-between the sweet kisses she’s searing into her skin like apologies of letting time whisk by. 

 

She talks about Liam who helped her bust the windows to Harry’s car, how the baseball bat she used was a birthday present from Harry himself when the boys’ baseball team rejected her to be on the team. She talks fast, and sometimes slow, her crisp accent clinging to each word, her smile pressed into the tone of her voice and Niall thinks falling in love couldn’t be easier. 

 

When Harry does return heaving bags of blood and a coupon he’d charmed off the butcher, he’s smiling to himself, pleased with the outcome of the little visit. He pokes a straw into the blood bag and hands it to Niall and pops open a can of pringles and beers for Louis and himself, settling right next to his best friend. His back leaning onto the sofa, the tips of his fingers grazing the inside of Niall’s calves every time he moves to laugh or pluck out a chip and Niall thinks if Harry would be okay with this. 

 

Louis passes out close to midnight, and Harry puts her to bed in Niall’s room coming back downstairs to help her clean the mess they’d made. Niall dumps the beer cans into recycling and grabs the flannel off the counter and bumps into Harry. 

 

“Oh, I’m sorry,” she bumps back, her balance wobbly and her body still catching up to the blood in her body. 

 

Harry steadies her, his fingers settling on the jut of her hips, and brings her back to ground and just like that Niall can hear it again, the thrumming of her heart in her ears like the song she was humming along to this morning except this time she doesn’t want to forget it. Harry’s eyes are soft in the same way they get when children see puppies, a gleam of excitement but a glint of worry, or when parents catch their children helping them with chores, and Niall knows that Harry would make an excellent father. He’d be the kind to love until you can say  _ i am loved _ . 

 

Niall side-steps to get out of his way when he grabs a hold of her wrist, her frenzied pulse right under the pad of his thumb, and he’s looking directly at her, “I wanna make you happy.”

 

Niall peers at him, “with Louis?”

 

And she wants him to flinch, wants to stand stunned, wants him to back away and maybe run and never come back, but he does what she secretly wants the most, “Of course. Your rules, babe.”

 

\--

 

Niall blows at the rubber ducky until it floats away towards Louis, the bubbles latching onto the rubber surface like the the flowers that cling along to those wedding boats they show on yes to dress - ok, Niall has had a lot of free time and quality reality tv ceases to exist. Louis takes her right leg out of the water, hanging it in the air as soapy water glides down her sun-kissed skin, and then points a finger at Niall, “Come here.” 

 

Niall crab crawls forward, the tips of her hair dipping into the lukewarm water, it's not clear but instead a teal color swirling with glitter sticking to the skin of their breasts. Niall’s mostly covered under the water but Louis is sitting up straight, her back against the tub with her chest sparkling and if this was twilight or a poorly written vampire novela she’d be the ever so threatening fanged creature. 

 

When there is enough space to fit a football in-between them, Louis twists her legs around Niall’s waist before piling herself into Niall's lap. She smiles, before nipping at the curve of Niall’s ear sending a shiver down her spine. 

 

There's a thud at the door and instinctively Niall pushes back, Louis flopping on her back into the water, her head just missing the end of the bathtub. 

 

The door opens to Harry standing with a hand pressed to his eyelids and two sets of towels in his hands, “I got the towels you asked for!” 

 

Louis rolls her eyes, and Niall chuckles, moving forward and rubbing her thumb at the nape of Louis’ neck, pulling her in to whisper, “We should mess about.” 

 

Louis grins, loudly proclaiming, “I adore how you think, Horan.” 

 

With a tug to the nape of her neck she’s being pulled in, her lips landing on Louis’, her chest twitching like it always does, sparklers now turned into fireworks igniting in her stomach, a crackle that is fizzing along to the sound of their slick lips and bated breaths. Niall knows Louis is doing this to annoy Harry, doing it so she can claim some sort of stake over her, but she also know there’s hardly any bitterness to it nor any malice. 

 

A cough echoes in the bathroom, the tiled walls bouncing back Harry’s pleas of annoyance, “I am going to burn your minted collection of miniature x-men and throw the hot wheels track outside the window if you don’t stop right this second, Tommo.”

 

Louis pulls back, her eyes closed still as Niall admires the softness of her skin, the way her hair’s been growing out, to her shoulders now, and says, “Don’t fucking think I don’t know about the Chia pet in your room.”

 

She flutters her eyes open, her eyelashes damp, her lips a strawberry like pink lemonade that you’d get in the mason jars at pluckers. Niall spent a summer in Austin laying around Zilker park soaking in the sun, going to barton’s for tubing and that’s when she’d had it. The ice cubes like a prize under the weight of the wickedly sugary liquid. 

 

Harry’s eyes are still closed, but the creases of a scowl are neatly running the span of his forehead and tugging down the corners of his lips, but doesn’t say anything in return. There’s a ringing coming from the room and Niall recognizes it as the tune to ‘Petulia’ and smiles, “Your phone is ringing.”

 

Louis grunts, heaving herself up with water splashing everywhere and dripping, Niall’s hands reaching her legs to steady her in the small tub, “Towel, beanpole.”

 

Harry mutters profanities under his breath, thrusting the towel to Louis which she takes, her bony arms dabbing at the water on her chest and then tying the towel around herself. She holds onto Harry’s shoulder to anchor herself, jumping out of the tub, placing a fleeting kiss to his eyebrow and then rushing out with a, “Thanks, love!”

 

Harry stands there idly his arm stretched out with a towel hanging off it like a peculiar towel rack and Niall can’t believe she’s so endeared by two people all at once. She gets up to her feet the water swishing and noisily whorling the teal and the glitter, she places a finger on top of Harry’s knuckle and starts pushing it down, “Wanna join me?”

 

His wings are hidden today which is a shame because Niall adores them, a faint blush shrouded by the tan of his skin traces along the bridge of his nose, and it’s not even close to the way Niall’s own skin is pinking up under the sunlight streaming in through the little window. 

 

Harry says instead, his adam’s apple bobbing, “Go out with me.” He pauses, and slowly, tentatively opens his eyes, “On a date. We should go on a date.”

 

Niall should move to cover herself, but Harry’s looking at her, not the pale skin speckled with runny blue veins and matted with freckles, but just her. She tucks the errant hair strand behind her ear, and replies softly, “Sure.”

 

-

The carnival is where Harry takes them - Louis tags along because why not and he clearly doesn’t mind -, it’s at the edge of town and tents have been sprung up on the otherwise barren land and lights at every corner, smell of grilled food and popcorn mixing with the heavy laughter of children. 

 

Niall thinks of a carnival she’d attended along the jersey shore, the chipped seashells poking at the skin beneath her feet, and she thinks of  _ him _ . How he’d held her hand like she was a delicate antique and she’d break if he held on too tight, or how she was like the white cotton candy they’d shared with tentative bites and soft laughs. She thinks about how the ocean sung songs to them and welcomed them amidst the rush. 

 

Niall was irrevocably in love with him, the kind where she’d debated living out a white picket fence dream on the coast, tucked away in a two bedroom house with a litter of children to call their own. Niall had told him that night about the stars, and how she wanted to pluck them to her liking, she’d told him about the fangs and the swell of her heart whenever she saw him. He had said, “I don’t get it.”

 

But it was her who didn’t when he packed his bags without a goodbye, the kisses exchanged under tangled sheets left like a ghosting memory she didn’t even know had existed - maybe, it didn’t. 

 

Niall breaks off from Louis and Harry while they’re busy bickering about what kind of takiyoki is the best, going to the cotton candy stand, and asks for a pink one. She pays in change and then turns to find the other two nowhere to be seen, her belly squirms and the itch on the inside of her wrist and the ringing of her ears and the yearning to be loved rushes in like upchuck after a bad hangover. She doesn’t know why, but salty water dampens her eyes, her feet guiding through the hoard, weaving till she reaches a small picnic spot where Harry and Louis are standing. 

 

She’s far enough that they can’t see her but she can see and hear them, and so she listens because her knees wobble, and she’s suddenly terribly afraid of what she doesn’t know. 

 

“Louis, I think I love her,” Harry says, and Louis swats his arm. Niall ignores the way her breath hitches at that, “Fool, you say that at least twice a week. You said it about the grocer lady at Tesco’s.”

 

Harry shakes his head adamantly, “No,  _ no _ , I love her.” 

 

Louis’ heart is racing, Niall can hear it like a siren among the bustling of the crowd, her skin is prickling with sweat too, and she answers, “Yeah, well, so am I.”

 

Harry nods, reaching to stroke her cheek and Louis leans into the touch, “It’s okay then, yeah?”

 

“Of course, it is,” she turns her face just enough to kiss the inside of his palm. She catches Niall’s eyes then and her smile doubles, her eyes bright, “There you are!”

 

Niall strides towards them, ready to give them an option - anything along the lines of a way out. But Harry pulls her back into his chest, twisting his arms around her waist and Louis pushes up on her toes, “You better be sharing, brat.”

 

“Fuck off, I paid,” she teases, let's Louis steal a kiss instead with Harry’s solid weight against Niall’s back, anchoring her to the ground that Louis desperately makes her want to ascend from. 

 

They ride the ferris wheel and Harry doesn’t let go of her hand all night, not even when she jerks up from her seat to stare at the carnival and the stars, and Louis keeps stealing sweet kisses and they eat their weight in candy and empty Harry’s wallet because he’d agree to pay.

 

They walk back home with Louis on Harry’s back singing Christmas Carols in late September, her arms flailing as she butcher’s the words to jingle bell rock cause apparently what is a better a classic. Harry’s fingers are still entwined with Niall’s dangling together in-between them and by the time they get to Harry’s they’re tired, sore feet and hoarse voices. 

 

Louis promptly gets off the gangly boy and runs inside and collapses on the sofa, immediately passing out. Niall edges to tell her to sleep in a proper bed when she hears Harry saying, “She has as an emotional attachment to it. Leave her be she’ll sleep like a baby.”

 

“How come?” Niall asks, following Harry into the kitchen where he pours her a cup of water. 

 

He gulps around his own drink, darting his eyes around to anywhere but him, “She had her first kiss on it. Break up, got the email for her grant for her research sitting on it, and so much more.”

 

Niall hums, remembering, “Weren’t you her first kiss?”

 

Harry winces, placing the jug of water back into the fridge and rounds the kitchen table towards the stairs, Niall following in his step, “I mean, yeah, but like. She, I don’t know. She didn’t like it she said.”

 

“But her ex was a boy?” Niall prods, and Harry nods. “Louis just loves to be honest, the gender shit just goes over her head.”

 

“You must be a terrible kisser,” Niall jokes when they’re at the foot of Harry’s door. He stops in his tracks, turning to face her, “Excuse me, if I remember correctly you quite enjoyed kissing me?”

 

It comes out as a question which only encourages Niall, so she teases, “I don’t know. It was hot that day and you had nice wings, kinda just wanted to touch them. You were a 5 at best.”

 

Harry hiccups, quite comically, his eyes widening, “Five? The heck? I am not a five!”

 

He unlocks the door and taps on the light, the room spacious, candles on the drawers and paintings hanging on of the walls, photographs collaged above his bed frame. Niall’s too busy looking around that she doesn’t even notice how Harry’s tugged off his shirt, he steps towards her.

 

“11 on my worst days,” he breaths, inching closer, his voice cracking at the edge of hoarseness. She swallows around the saliva in her mouth just as he catches her bottom lip, biting on it and then his mouth square on hers. He maneuvers her to turn with steady hands on her hips, her brain still catching up to what’s happening. She walks backwards, the back of her knees bumping against the bed. Harry darts his tongue along her lower lip, fishing it in and tangling it with her tongue, and then he’s pulling back pushing her on to the bed. 

 

Niall falls unceremoniously, her hair creating a blond web spanning the mattress, and Harry gets on top of her, she blinks at the way his eyes are dark - hooded and she makes a sound at the back of her throat. She’s being looked at differently, not a devourable appetizer, but instead even in the darkness there is a softness and she wants Harry to tell her what he told Louis. She’s greedy and she wants hear him say it. 

 

He ducks down latching onto her mouth eliciting a breathy moan out of her, his hand pushing up the plaits of her skirt, and it’s when his thumb touches the seam of her underwear that she goes stiff, and without a word he instantly brings his hand back down, instead reaching to rub soothing strokes at her wrist as he kisses her. She relaxes, weaving her fingers through his curls, and she sees it, the wings unfold and flutter and that’s when Harry pulls back. Grinning, and pressing a kiss to her fully-clothed tummy.

  
  


“Would you like to sleep here?” His lips have gone bright red, much like the cherry stain on her favorite white dress that is resilient and won't come out, and she nods, curling arms around his neck as he flops on her. In between evening out his breathing and humming to the tune of ‘love will keep us alive’  he whispers, quiet and but so sure, “It is okay if you don’t like it.”

 

Niall wasn’t looking for any validation, but it is nice to know Harry isn’t perturbed about this. 

\--

She wakes up to Harry kissing the crook of her elbow, she tries to move away just to annoy him when she feels her chest knock into a back, she wills her eyes to find Louis on her other side, scrolling on her phone and absently brushing circles into Niall’s thigh which is tucked inside the gap of Louis’ legs. 

 

There have been many mornings where she’s woken up smiling, sometimes upset, other times empty, but for the past few months it’s been a perpetual state of happiness, and she’s infinitely sated. She yawns, arching her back further into Harry and stretching to wrap her arm around Louis, “Good morning, my loves.”

 

Harry noses her shoulder, his warm mint scented breath greeting her, and mumbles, “Tattoo appointment tonight.”

 

Two months ago Niall had been pulled into the mess and had agreed to get tattooed with Harry and Louis, and in retrospect the idea seemed great. Now she’s not too sure standing outside the parlor called  _ INK! _ written in bubble letters with comic book strip running across the banner. The front bell dings once they step in, Niall’s boot clacking against the polished floor, and Harry holds her thumb. 

 

Once the man in front of them is taken to the back Harry steps away to talk to the guy behind the counter as Louis tells her tattoo stories, “This one I got during my skateboarding phase. Thought it was funny.”

 

Niall traces the little doodle, and says, “Seems kinda stupid.” To which Louis frowns, and Niall continues, “Also, phase? You scraped your knee last weekend trying to show off the ‘new’ technique you learned.”

 

“You’re such a fuckface, I hate you,” Louis spits, laughing to her own words. “I hope yours looks like a wart.”

 

“Vampires don’t get warts,” Niall claims proudly, and carries on, “Would still be better than your face though.”

 

Louis’ jaw drops open, and she quickly fishes out, “You know girlfriends are supposed to be nice and soft and not burp beer in your face.”

 

“Are you watching Harry’s romcoms again at work?”

 

Louis’ face screws up, but it’s not at Niall’s comment cause she’s not even looking at her, she’s looking at someone behind her. Niall turns to find a boy roughly their age, ageless to be quite honest, he’s a hamdriad and breathtakingly beautiful at that. 

 

“Hey,” he waves, awkwardly, and Harry is behind him gawking and his hands everywhere like he’s trying to put out fire by wafting the air in a different direction. He’s an odd person. 

 

Louis inches closer to Niall, slotting their fingers together, and seething, “We don’t need tattoos. We are leaving.”

 

But Niall stands her ground, reading the situation, and says, “I do.” She sees Harry face-palm himself and the dark-haired boy with warm eyes says, “Alright, then you’re up,...uhm?”

 

“Niall,” she smiles pushing her hand forward. 

 

“Zayn myself,” he takes her hand.

\--

The seat that Zayn makes her sit on is cushioned and the room is an amalgamation of tattoo designs, pictures, strip of comics, more pictures, and paintings - it should be a mess but it isn’t. Is kind of cool if you ask her. He himself sits on a stool pulling it forward with his kit by his side, “Okay, babe, what would you like?”

 

“Actually, I want two,” Niall smiles. 

 

Once Zayn’s done, just bandaging the inside of her wrist, Niall asks, “Why’d you leave her?”

 

He looks up through his thick eyelashes and he looks like the kind of boy you long to love, the kind of boy who longs to be loved, “I. I wasn’t good for her.”

 

Niall tilts her head, then looks at the frame behind him which holds a picture of the boy and another girl, blonde. She’s smiling down at him with his head in her lap and it is a polaroid, and they look comfortable and sure of something that might or might not even be there. That’s the best part of humans, they just believe with no cause or reason - they’ve learned to believe. 

 

“I am,” Niall says surely and grins. He smiles back at her asking, “Who’s the other flower for then?”

 

Niall laughs, her cheeks warming up, “Knew you’d figure it out.” She looks over her shoulder out the window in the door, and sees Harry showing Louis something on his phone, “Just a boy.”   
  


“A boy and a girl,” and it sounds like Zayn understands. 

 

Louis doesn’t stay mad for too long especially after Niall shows her the mini solar system inside of her wrist, and Louis argues to name them something different just as an inside joke, and Harry gets them ice cream even though Niall doesn’t like it but Louis does, and Niall buys dinner, and when they go back to Louis’ they rummage through her belongings to find a red bandana. 

 

“And what about this is so important?” Niall asks, her head in Harry’s lap as he runs his fingers through her hair, Louis pacing back and forth. 

 

Louis stops, and with a quiver to her voice says, “It’s the last of the gifts he gave me.”

 

So, they climb the hill near Niall’s house and burn the bandana. Once the cloth is nothing but ashes and Louis has shed her last tear, Niall pulls her in for a kiss and Harry presses one to her forehead. Niall also brings out a box labelled ‘ _ OLD _ ’ and starts sorting out stuff from it, a teddy bear, the bracelet from the carnival, a carved swan, and hands it over to Louis and Niall. 

 

“We should burn this too,” she suggests and both dorks exchange worrisome looks. Harry tries to say something but Louis beats him to it, “Ni, what are these? Why are we burning your stuff?”

 

Niall shrugs, “Cause I want to stop remembering.”

 

They don’t ask more, not when Niall wakes up crying one night next october, not when Louis tells Niall she wants to move in together, not when Harry fits his things in their lives until all three of them live in the house that was once just empty halls and rooms at one point. A little down the road, when 2 years have passed and Louis’ gotten a steady job at the University of Dublin along with a research lab and Harry has started his own nursery and his parents are flying over for christmas, does Niall tell them. 

 

She finds Louis and Harry watching Friends re-runs cuddled on the couch when she says, “I have to show you something.”

 

Both dart their eyes to her, and nod, as she pushes down the soft cotton of her shorts shimmying out of them, and steps forward, two small flowers branching off one stem on the inside of her thigh, too far up for Louis to notice during baths, too far up for Harry to press his fingers into. 

 

Harry peers at her flushed skin, looking up for permission, because he always asks, and when she nods he traces along the petals, “Why flowers?”

 

“Cause they can wilt away but not on my skin, not from my memory,” and Louis starts crying. The ugly kind the way she does during  _ 27 dresses _ and wheezes out, “I love you, I wanna marry you!”

 

Niall laughs, settling between the two hearing her heart beat twice at once and for the first time all this time isn’t daunting. It’s just them, now, until they’ll have her. 

  
  


  
  


**Author's Note:**

> comments kudos and all that jazz! come talk to me @ niallohmighty.tumblr.com


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